From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsteppesteppe /step/ noun [countable, uncountable] (also the steppes [plural]) PGa large area of land without trees, especially in Russia, Asia, and eastern Europe
Examples from the Corpus
steppe• Wheat descends from three grasses that hybridized on the Anatolian steppes.• Galloping horses, endless deserts and grassland steppes.• Farmland, especially among growing crops, open grassland, steppes, semi-deserts.• Saltcoats was made up of lumpy steppe.• In 376, however, the Visigoths found themselves under extreme pressure from the Huns, an Asiatic people from the steppes.• In the steppes and the Caucasus they knew the dead could rise again, and how they could be stopped.• Their linguistic legacy is still to be found in the major river valleys of the steppe and forest-steppe.• They settled the steppes so successfully that their numbers grew to forty-five thousand in less than a century.Origin steppe (1600-1700) Russian step 